Currently Playing: Ferdinand Is A Good Example of How Not To Do Cross-Media.
FERDINAND: UNSTOPPABULL
“Hi there! This is the tutorial! Welcome to dance!” This might(?) be a joke from the film, but to a person whose first encounter with the franchise is via this game, it doesn't make a positive first impression. And in our fast-paced, over-saturated world of multimedia, first impressions count for a great deal.
If I had to write a bible on cross-media franchises, then making each media capable of standing as a quality product in its own right would be amongst the first cardinal rules. You shouldn't need to have watched the film in order to enjoy the game, or read the book to get the in-joke in the TV series; the media should be interlinked as a network of experiences, and not a sequential one. The reason for doing this is that one positive encounter with a media can encourage consumers to actively seek out and explore others in the franchise. The game should encourage you to watch the film, the film to read the comic, and so on, not punish you for having encountered them in the "wrong" order. The Marvel Cinematic Universe does a great job of this, by stringing together individually interesting media which tease at, and intertwine with, one another, encouraging the viewer/player/consumer to try out characters and experiences they otherwise would have been indifferent too. A person who loves Iron Man but previously had no interest in The Hulk might be tempted by an Avengers movie, and from that movie, then also be drawn to the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D tv series. After repeated positive interactions with the MCU in various guises, completionism and curiosity combine to prompt the person to at least try a new character or brand, and then it all goes from there!
The Ferdinand game consummately fails at either creating a positive stand-alone experience or serving as a lure to draw the player into other co-branded experiences. The gameplay is utterly unoriginal - which in itself would not be a terrible thing, a game can be familiar without being bad - but the presentation also is utterly phoned-in and the on-boarding poor. Animations and dialogue are (presumably) ripped wholesale form the film, and lacking the film’s context, make no sense whatsoever. The themes of the franchise are not communicated anywhere nearly clearly enough, and immediately prompt the player to begin questioning the very foundations upon which the story is built: "Why are there musical notes? Is the bull dancing...am I the bull?! Why am I dancing? Am I good at dancing?! What is going on here?" The assumption that the player has already got privileged access to key ideas about the story and gameplay undermines both the game and the film, by confusing the player and spoiling the experience of the viewer.
Ferdinand the game only succeeded in putting me off the idea of Ferdinand the film, which previous to that moment, I'd been pretty interested in seeing. The game undid the positive effects of advertising I had encountered in other settings by creating a negative impression of the media, and it did not stay on my device for long. Entertaining and interesting video advertisements in my local shopping mall had nudged me towards a favourable impression of the media; the poor impression of the media created by experiencing a badly made game donkey-kicked my favourability score back down the scale from a cautiously intrigued light green to an adversely campaigning red.
A free game put me off paying to get a cinema ticket to see a new film, and this should serve as a cautionary tale. The interactivity of digital games means they can be a powerful influencer on behaviour, for good and for bad. A good game can convert new customers to trying the other media in a franchise, whilst a poor game experience can put them off entirely. It pays to get expert help and advice to make an attempt at a cross-media franchise a success!
